Ink samples from Manga Studio EX

I've pretty much locked down on inking my work with Manga Studio over the last couple of years. It still takes practice but I've (hopefully) been moving out of the technical learning curve into the artistry phase. The pen tool is where most of this takes place and it has some really cool settings to establish a style alongside personal tastes.

Here are some examples of what the settings (checkboxes on the tool prefs) allow. You'll see a very loose pencil sketch posted as the base, this was actually pencil on paper scanned from my sketchbook, but I also enjoy Manga Studio's pencil tool and may post on that separately. The Assisted "Stroke In" and "Stroke out" is largely what is in play; different pen tips do affect the line but not as dramatically. I like the swashy, thick strokes akin to the brush of my dream artistic ability, tho I don't think software is any kind of a shortcut to good old fashioned work. But it sure helps :-)

Stroke effect can come to bite you as you are giving up some of the control, but extended use eventually teaches a nice give and take. As you see above, I'll use a combination of stroke effect and a raw tool to get where I like. Using only the stroke in/out effect takes a little life out of the drawing but is clean. Going under your own hand-- using the pressure sensitivity of the stylus to determine stroke-- relies more on your abilities and retains personality. At least that's what I'm getting from all this.